How do societies decide whom to criminalize? What does it mean to accuse someone of being an offender? Entryways to Criminal Justice analyzes the thresholds that distinguish law-abiding individuals from those who may be criminalized. Contributors to the volume adopt social, historical, cultural, and political perspectives to explore the accusatory process that place persons in contact with the law. Emphasizing the gateways to criminal justice, truth-telling, and overcriminalization, the authors provide important insights into often overlooked practices that admit persons to criminal justice. It is essential reading for scholars, students, and policy makers in the fields of socio-legal studies, sociology, criminology, law and society, and post/colonial studies. Contributors: Dale A. Ballucci, Martin A. French, Aaron Henry, Bryan R. Hogeveen, Dawn Moore, George Pavlich, Marcus A. Sibley, Rashmee Singh, Amy Swiffen, Matthew P. Unger, Elise Wohlbold, Andrew Woolford

This book reveals why Aaron Henry (1922-1997) should be acknowledged, in the ranks of Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar Evers, as a truly influential crusader. Long before many of his contemporaries, he was a civil rights activist, but he preferred to stay out of the limelight. A certified pharmacist and owner of Fourth Street Drug Store in Clarksdale, he considered himself a down-home businessman who must not leave Mississippi. Although he was a key figure in bringing Head Start, housing, employment, and health service to his state, his tact and his quiet diplomacy garnered him less attention than more radical protesters received. He became state president of the NAACP in 1959 and was able, more than any previous leader, to unite Mississippi blacks, despite diversities of age, ideology, and class, in confronting white supremacy. He spearheaded the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). Some activists criticized him for urging protesters to take the middle ground between the NAACP's conservative position and SNCC's militant activism. Facing recurring death threats, thirty-three jailings, and Klan bombings of his home and drugstore, Henry remained stalwart and courageous. Constance Curry has shaped this personal narrative of a brave and underacknowledged man who helped change his state forever. To his candid story, transcribed from interviews Henry gave two young historians in 1965, Curry adds new material from her own interviews with his family, friends, and political associates. Henry's prophetic voice documents a momentous period in African American history that extends from the Great Depression through the civil rights movement in the pivotal 1960s.

This book chronicles the successful struggle of Douglas Conner to escape poverty and to provide advancement not only for himself but also for impoverished and oppressed blacks in his home state of Mississippi. In this poignant autobiography Conner tells of having to overcome the code that taught that blackness and subordination were interchangeable, though he never accepted it. His goal of becoming a physician provided motivation for continued hope. When he later attended Alcorn State University and then traveled north to Connecticut and Detroit and still later when he attended the Army's first integrated classes during World War II, he began to realize that his dream was possible. In 1950 he achieved it when he graduated from Howard University as a medical doctor. Thereafter he established his practice in Starkville, Mississippi and devoted himself to improving life for countless people. He provided leadership in the state's Democratic party and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was instrumental in leading many blacks to the voting booths and in battling for the desegregation of schools and businesses. In the foreword to this book Aaron Henry, Dr. Conner's friend of many years, provides insights into this black physician's importance and into their common goals during the civil rights movement. For all readers this book tells what it was like to be a black Mississippian during the Jim Crow era and in the time of desegregation. All can learn from it.

Douglas L. Conner (deceased) was a physician in Starkville, Mississippi and a civil rights activist. John F. Marszalek is Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University. Aaron Henry (deceased) was a pharmacist in Clarksdale, Mississippi and a civil rights activist.